Malala's Courage A Light Against Taliban Darkness

It is a miracle when, against all odds, brutality and terror do not snuff out the human spirit. Just such a marvel is embodied in the 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, who spoke clearly this week from Britain, where she and her family now live. She is still recovering from an assassination attempt in October, when a member of the Taliban boarded a school bus near her home in Pakistan and shot her in the head.

The Taliban tried to kill Malala because for several years, with the support of her father, she spoke out on behalf of the right of girls to be educated. Her father owned a girls' school in the Swat valley of Pakistan. They both became targets in a place where the Taliban has killed and disfigured female students, razed thousands of schools for girls and issued nightly threats on the radio.

Malala and people like her will never be safe, and neither will Pakistan, while the Taliban hold sway in different regions of that country. Pakistanis were outraged after the Taliban shot the teen, but soon after, the sense of urgency slipped away. Conservative clerics criticized her, implying that she was an American agent. Others absurdly insinuated that America, not the Taliban, was behind the crime.

Insane? Yes — but unsurprising. Malala's courage is without question. She remains an important symbol of resistance. But Pakistan's commitment to eradicating the Taliban appears wobbly at best. Shamefully, while that remains the case, the Taliban, with all its cruelty, will retain the upper hand.